PetScreening.com: An Overview & Value Propositions

Hi, this is John Bradford, pet lover and founder of PetScreening.com. PetScreening.com operates in all 50 states here in the United States as well as in Canada. Our corporate office is located in the Queen City — Charlotte, North Carolina.

PetScreening.com was designed by a property manager for property managers and our service is for third party property and asset managers as well as any independent landlord. We service the entire housing industry — multi family, single family, vacation and short-term rentals, student housing, senior housing, anything housing we cover it.

Let's talk about industry problems. First, we know that all residents including residents that say they do not have a pet or an animal are not consistently on the record about their understanding, their acceptance, and their adherence of your pet and animal related policies.

Second, assistance animal fraud is real. People will try to circumvent pet policies by saying their pet is an assistance animal. Leasing agents and property managers are extremely apprehensive about reviewing assistance animal accommodation requests. They're scared to do it, they don't want to make a bad decision, they don't want to get themselves in trouble, and they most certainly don't want to get the firm they work for in trouble.

Third, we know that staff turnover creates real training and liability issues especially for multifamily management firms which often have assets across the United States. They're dealing with communities and a very large cast net of staff. It's hard to make sure that everyone is properly trained at all times and that they really know how to handle reviewing assistance animal requests.

Fourth, pet revenue which can only be charged for pets not assistance animals. We know that pet revenue is not being maximized due to the general lack of comprehensive data that's available.

Fifth, we know that there are possible agency violations such as with HIPPA when it comes to protecting sensitive documentation regarding someone's assistance animal, as well as with HUD of possible discrimination complaints. These are real possible issues and problems in the housing industry.

Let's talk about the value propositions of PetScreening.com. We provide a consistent comprehensive and standardized approach to holding all of your residents and tenants more accountable. This includes residents and tenants that say they have no pets or animals, as well as those that say they have a pet or an animal.

There is no cost for property managers and asset managers and independent landlords to use our service. There is a nominal cost for applicants that own a household pet. We charge $20 for the first pet and $15 for any additional pet, and there is no cost whatsoever for anyone seeking to have their assistance animal and are submitting an accommodation request.

Now, every one in return receives a portable pet management product with a 12-month use license to be able to share their profiles with pet groomers, pet daycare, pet sitters and walkers, and even other landlords. So, if they don't get your rental property, don't fret. They don't pay the fee twice. They can just share their pet profile with another landlord and more. This is not a punitive charge. Pet owners really get a neat product in return. Even the assistance animals get the same functionality, even though they didn't pay anything. So, we offer that to everyone.

Our proprietary FIDO Score for pets focuses on not only the pet but also the pet owner. We know that not every pet owner is responsible and we surface the housing related risk that you're going to take by accepting that pet and pet owner. So, our proprietary FIDO Score will help you better understand the risk you're taking.

You can generate a substantial net new revenue stream. Let me give you an example. Just like the way a FICO score — which is a credit score — is used to help establish the security deposit for your applicants, our FIDO Score can help you provide a consistent way to charge variable pet fees, variable pet rents, variable pet deposits to help cover the commensurate risk that you're going to take by accepting that pet and pet owner into your property.

The FIDO Score can be customized to meet your breed restrictions. So if you have breed restrictions, you can customize the FIDO Score. Customization also applies to size and weight restrictions, and even age limits for puppies.

We have an in-house legal review team that adheres to HUD's Fair Housing Act guidelines and our legal review team reviews each and every accommodation request for assistance animals. Here's a really powerful statistic: Approximately 40% of our accommodation requests that we've reviewed have either gone on to self convert over to a household pet (which means that the requester may have started to question why is this legal review team asking me so many questions...maybe I won't press my luck here and I'll just convert this to a household pet) and then in return we of course will issue a FIDO Score on that pet and pet owner and then you can use the FIDO Score to charge pet rent, pet fees, and pet deposits based on what your state allows. So every time they self convert, that's an opportunity for you. And for the ones that continue through the process, of that 40%, the remaining do not receive a recommended status.

So, approximately 40% of the time, we're either helping them self convert to a pet or we're not recommending them because the information is insufficient. That's a pretty powerful statistic.

We use HIPAA compliant servers to protect the sensitive medical documentation that is often submitted with these requests. Then you have the ability to control the authenticated access as to who can or cannot access and see those documents. So you no longer have to worry about those medical letters that talk about all the things that an individual has regarding their disability floating around your main leasing offices. That's a very slippery slope and this helps remove that from happening because all the documentation is now submitted through PetScreening by the requester.

The results from PetScreening can be easily shared and integrated with any property management software platform. We literally have thousands of customers, and I think we have covered every single management software platform that's out there. I will say for Real Page, their OneSite product — which is largely a multi family product — we are fully integrated with OneSite and we are available in the Real Page Marketplace Exchange. Anyone with OneSite can just go into the Marketplace Exchange and click us on.

PetScreening.com is the only national collaborative database of pet and animal incidents. This means that anyone on your team can report pet or animal property damage, bites, unauthorized pets or animals, and more and this report history will follow not only the pet or animal, but also the owner into perpetuity. This is very powerful because if they surface two years later in a whole different state and they want to rent with a landlord or property manager that's using PetScreening.com, we will be able to surface a past incident so that new landlord is more aware of the pet or animal and owner’s history.

You can easily electronically share the profiles that we generate, whether it's a no pet or animal profile a pet profile or an animal profile, with your maintenance personnel or any third party vendors for real-time field confirmation. This will help you hold all your residents and tenants more accountable while they're on site. Personnel and vendors can verify if the profile photos actually match the pet or animal on-site. Furthermore, they can verify the size and even the quantity of pets or animals that are in the rental unit. Then they can report back any discrepancies they might find.

For example, for someone that says they have no pets or animals because the profile was a no pet or animal profile, your maintenance person knows that there should be no pets or animals there. But then they walk in and see a cat box. All they need to do is take a picture of that cat box, send it back to you.

We have an annual renewal process which will help you ensure that all of your residents and tenants go back through and renew their profile before they sign a new lease for a new term. This will help you hold everyone more accountable. That's very, very important. We don't force them to renew, but most certainly if you're a property manager you should require that they renew their profile annually. We alert you and we also alert them, but it's really up to you to make sure they're doing it because a lot can change in a year. You don't know if that dog went and bit someone at the local county dog park three months ago because they're not going to volunteer that information. So you need to get them back on the record answering that question about a pet bite and even if they lie, you will have them on the record as attesting that they were telling the truth. If there is an incident and the insurance company gets involved, and then it somehow surfaces there was a prior incident, you'll be able to show how you did your diligence. That's how this renewal can really help you moving ahead year to year before you sign a new lease.

Our requirements at PetScreening are easy. There's no cost. There's no software to download. There's no paperwork, no contract, no termination fee. We make it easy. If you have questions or want to schedule a more in-depth team demo, just drop us a line at info@petscreening.com. We just want to tell you that we believe at PetScreening.com that every pet deserves an opportunity.